1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method of, and an apparatus for, displaying recordable data in a camera. The present invention relates especially to a method of, and an apparatus for, displaying recordable data composed of characters which can be selectively set by the photographer, so as to record on a photograph information about the photograph.
2. Prior Art
It is conventional to record photographic data, typically the date of the photograph, on a photographic film in a camera, so as to indicate that date on the prints. Recently, there have been cameras wherein not only the date or time of the photograph but also a predetermined caption, such as "Merry Xmas", "Happy New Year" or the like, can be recorded along with the picture, by previously memorizing data on those captions.
An example of such types of conventional cameras is shown in FIG. 11, which has a display panel 1 for displaying the recording data, that is, photographic data and/or a caption. The display panel 1 is disposed on a rear cover 3 of a camera body 2. Below the display panel 1, there are disposed a mode change key (hereinafter referred to as an M key) 6 and a selection key (hereinafter referred to as an S key) 7. Designated by 15 and 16 are a viewfinder and a shutter button, respectively.
In this camera, the M key 6 is intended to display one of a plurality of predetermined photographic modes, such as a date recording mode, a time-of-day recording mode, or a caption recording mode, on the display panel 1. These modes are changed one after another in cyclic fashion upon each depression of the M key 6. For example, upon depression of the M key 6 in the time-of-day recording mode, the caption recording mode is set, and thus the first caption 60, e.g. "Merry Xmas", is displayed on the display panel 1. Upon depression of the S key 7 in the caption recording mode, the second caption 61, e.g. "'90 ", which means "'90 New Year's Day", is displayed in Japanese, using the cursive Kana and Chinese characters. Upon the next depression of the S key 7, the third caption 62, e.g. "'90 ", which means "'90 An Athletic Meet", is displayed in Japanese, using the Katakana characters. Upon each depression of the S key 7, the first to fifth captions 60 to 64 are displayed one after another on the display panel 1, so that a selected one of these captions can be photographically recorded as data on a photographic film upon depression of the shutter button 16. Even when the display panel 1 displays one of the captions 60 to 64, if the M key 6 is depressed, the camera proceeds from the caption recording mode to the date recording mode, or another mode.
However, the variety of captions that can be recorded by the conventional cameras is limited to a predetermined range, for example five variations as in the camera of FIG. 11.
To solve this problem, a camera has been proposed wherein the photographer can arrange an array of characters as data relating to an individual picture frame, the data being recorded on a photographic film. Although such a camera broadens the range of options for recording data, the conventional recording data selection is time consuming, because respective characters to be displayed and recorded must be selected while cyclically displaying a series of characters in each display position of the display panel 1.
If, for example, the photographer intends to record as photographic data "zoo 9/18", as shown in FIG. 12, because a character "z" must be displayed in the first display position 1a, it is necessary successively to display all the alphabet characters "a, b, c, d . . . " in the first display position 1a so as to select the last letter "z". As for the other display positions, it is necessary to repeat a similar display sequence until desired characters are displayed. This is obviously cumbersome and boring, especially in the case where many characters, e.g. 10 characters in FIG. 12, are necessary to compose a desired recordable text.
Furthermore, considering the above cumbersome selection operation, the range of kinds of characters available for optional character recording is narrower than that of the conventional predetermined captions, for example, to alphabetical and numerical characters. Therefore, the variety of character arrangements, and thus the variety of recordable data, is insufficient.